CHAPTER I
THE CHRISTMAS TREE
Two old ladies sat in the corner of the drawing-room. The younger – a colonial cousin of the elder – was listening eagerly to gossip which dealt with English society in general, and Rickwell society in particular. They presumably assisted in the entertainment of the children already gathered tumultuously round the Christmas tree, provided by Mr. Morley; but Mrs. Parry's budget of scandal was too interesting to permit the relaxing of Mrs. McKail's attention.
"Ah yes," said Mrs. Parry, a hatchet-faced dame with a venomous tongue and a retentive memory, "Morley's fond of children, although he has none of his own."
"But those three pretty little girls?" said Mrs. McKail, who was fat, fair, and considerably over forty.
"Triplets," replied the other, sinking her voice. "The only case of triplets I have met with, but not his children. No, Mrs. Morley was a widow with triplets and money. Morley married her for the last, and had to take the first as part of the bargain. I don't deny but what he does his duty by the three."
Mrs. McKail's keen grey eyes wander to the fat, rosy little man who laughingly struggled amidst a bevy of children, the triplets included. "He seems fond of them," said she, nodding.
"Seems!" emphasised Mrs. Parry shrewdly. "Ha! I don't trust the man. If he were all he seems, would his wife's face wear that expression? No, don't tell me."
Mrs. Morley was a tall, lean, serious woman, dressed in sober grey. She certainly looked careworn, and appeared to participate in the festivities more as a duty than for the sake of amusement. "He is said to be a good husband," observed Mrs. McKail doubtfully. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure of nothing where men are concerned. I wouldn't trust one of them. Morley is attentive enough to his wife, and he adores the triplets – so he says; but I go by his eye. Orgy is written in that eye. It can pick out a pretty woman, my dear. Oh, his wife doesn't look sick with anxiety for nothing!"
"At any rate, he doesn't seem attentive to that pretty girl over there – the one in black with the young man."
"Girl! She's twenty-five if she's an hour. I believe she paints and puts belladonna in her eyes. I wouldn't have her for my governess. No, she's too artful, though I can't agree with you about her prettiness."
"Is she the governess?"
Mrs. Parry nodded, and the ribbons on her cap curled like Medusa's snakes. "For six months Mrs. Morley has put up with her. She teaches the Tricolor goodness knows what."
"The Tricolor?"
"So we call the triplets. Don't you see one is dressed in red, another in white, and the third in blue? Morley's idea, I believe. As though a man had any right to interest himself in such things. We call them collectively the Tricolor, and Anne Denham is the governess. Pretty? No. Artful? Yes. See how she is trying to fascinate Ware!"
"That handsome young man with the fair moustache and – "
"The same," interrupted Mrs. Parry, too eager to blacken character to give her friend a chance of concluding her sentence. "Giles Ware, of Kingshart – the head of one of our oldest Essex families. He came into the estates two years ago, and has settled down into a country squire after a wild life. But the old Adam is in him, my dear. Look at his smile – and she doesn't seem to mind. Brazen creature!" And Mrs. Parry shuddered virtuously.
The other lady thought that Ware had a most fascinating smile, and was a remarkably handsome young man of the fair Saxon type. He certainly appeared to be much interested in the conversation of Miss Denham. But what young man could resist so beautiful a woman? For in spite of Mrs. Parry's disparagement Anne was a splendidly handsome brunette – "with a temper," added Mrs. McKail mentally, as she eyed the well-suited couple.
Mrs. Parry's tongue still raged like a prairie fire. "And she knows he's engaged," she snorted. "Look at poor Daisy Kent out in the cold, while that woman monopolizes Ware! Ugh!"
"Is Miss Kent engaged to Mr. Ware?"
"For three years they have been engaged – a family arrangement, I understand. The late Kent and the late Ware," explained Mrs. Parry, who always spoke thus politely of men, "were the greatest of friends, which I can well understand, as each was an idiot. However, Ware died first and left his estate to Giles. A few months later Kent died and made Morley the guardian of his daughter Daisy, already contracted to be married to Giles."
"Does he love her?"
"Oh, he's fond of her in a way, and he is anxious to obey the last wish of his father. But it seems to me that he is more in love with that black cat."
"Hush! You will be heard."
Mrs. Parry snorted. "I hope so, and by the cat herself," she said grimly. "I can't bear the woman. If I were Mrs. Morley I'd have her out of the house in ten minutes. Turn her out in the snow to cool her hot blood. What right has she to attract Ware and make him neglect that dear angel over there? See, yonder is Daisy. There's a face, there's charm, there's hair!" finished Mrs. Parry, quite unconscious that she was using the latest London slang. "I call her a lovely creature."
